


and the skeletons in my closet are preparing for the skeleton war

by ScreechTheMighty



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Ghost busting, The author doesn't know how MIT works, The other Ghostbusters show up in this but not a lot so I'm not tagging them, wonky timeline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-29 00:22:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7662934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScreechTheMighty/pseuds/ScreechTheMighty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt Geiszler doesn't get paid to science ghosts. He gets paid to science giant squid and other cephelapods. Fortunately, when there's something strange in his neighborhood, he knows who to call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the skeletons in my closet are preparing for the skeleton war

**Author's Note:**

> I should note that the title has little to do with the actual content of the story. There are no skeletons in closets. Anyway, at least two people wanted to see something like this written, so here I am, writing it. Again, I really don't know anything about MIT, so I'm keeping things as vague as possible. If anyone has any suggestions for anything, let me know!
> 
> TIMELINE NOTES: basically an AU based around this idea a friend of mine had where Hermann goes to MIT and he and Newt meet there and still bicker/become friends/become room mates (because I'll never let my Platonic Life Partnership Dynamic go)/get jobs there. Also their birthdates and history have been shifted back so they're roughly 31 and 32 in the modern era, not the ages they'd actually be about now in the PacRim timeline.

Professor Doctor Hermann Gottlieb could be found in his office at all strange hours of the day or evening, even when all logic dictated that he should’ve gone home. It was well-known that his office hours were more guidelines than set rules; if you walked by, he might be there. If pressed, he would sometimes admit that his reason for staying was that getting work done at home could be difficult, so he preferred to work in his office. That explanation only made sense if you knew who he lived with.

“Dude, you should’ve gone home like, hours ago _._ You know we don’t get paid by the hour.”

Hermann huffed, irritated. “I was grading tests. And this is all very rich coming from the man who is definitely _not_ home right now.”

“Wh-how do you…”

“I can hear cars, Newton.”

Newton Geiszler made a strangled noise that sounded like three different explanations for his location were coming out of his mouth at the same time. “ _Listen_ ,” he said finally, “some Team Valor asshole stole a gym on-campus, and…”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“This is serious business!”

Damn that mobile game. Hermann paused in the middle of the conversation to push open one of the heavier doors in the building. “Just promise me you’re not going to wander into any dark alleys after a bunch of pixels and code.”

“C’mon, man, that was _one_ time.”

Hermann was about to retort when he heard something coming from one of the abandoned classrooms. It sounded like chalk on a chalkboard. Was someone studying? It wasn’t too uncommon to find students camped out in whatever empty classrooms they could find to study. What _was_ uncommon was finding students in this part of the building; apparently they found it _unnerving_. Hermann had never felt that way, but as Newton had pointed out one night over dinner, he was “incredibly German” and had grown up in a very old house near the mountains in Bavaria. What he found _unnerving_ wasn’t what other people found unnerving.

(He thought that Newton’s jab that he found unorganized books _unnerving_ a bit much, but couldn’t quite argue the main point.)

He was about to brush it off and continue the conversation when he realized that the sound was coming from a darkened classroom. Why would someone be using a chalkboard in complete darkness? No, not complete darkness. It looked like there was a faint light coming from the room—maybe a laptop screen? “Hermann?” Newton asked. “Dude, you there?”

“Sorry, I just…” Hermann approached the door and peered inside. “Hold on one second.” Just a quick peek to make sure there was nothing illegal going on, that was all. “There’s someone in one of the classrooms…”

He opened the door, stepped inside, turned to face whoever was in the room and…cursed.

Professor Doctor Hermann Gottlieb was not a man disposed to swearing needlessly. Not that he necessarily had anything against people who used profanities more liberally (for instance, while he objected to Newton’s indiscriminate use of them, even in more polite company, he had to admit that the man had a way of handling them that could be very, very impressive). He just preferred to save them for when they were absolutely necessary. He felt they carried more weight that way.

Discovering that the person in the classroom, writing frantically on the chalkboard, was _not_ a student, and was furthermore the source of the faint green light? That felt like a moment of _absolute necessity_.

Hermann heard Newton saying his name over the phone; he hung up without responding and backed towards the door. In his fumbling to get the knob, he dropped his cane. It landed on the floor with a _clatter._ For a split second, he was a ten-year-old child who had dropped something in the hallway outside his father’s  office, bracing himself for a reprimand. The face that turned sharply to face him certainly bore the same severe expression his father would’ve had in those moments. Father’s face never had the faint outline of a skull just under the surface of the pale green skin. And his eye sockets had never seemed so sunken in, so corpselike.

“…I’m terribly sorry,” Hermann said, politely as he could manage with a shaking voice. “I’ll…” He leaned over to pick back up his cane, never taking his eyes off the figure. “I’ll just be going now.”

The figure didn’t respond; nor did it make a move to come after Hermann as he finally got the door open and backed down it. Hermann made it halfway door the hallway on autopilot before the panic and confusion caught up to him. He had to sit down; his body decided that the floor was a good enough place as any. It occurred to him as he slumped against the wall that sitting down left him in a vulnerable position, should the… _whatever_ that was decide to come after him. When he peered back down the hall, though, the figure wasn’t there. He couldn’t even see the glow coming out of the door.

_All right,_ he thought, dazed. _I’ll just…stay here, then._

The figure didn’t come down the hallway after him. Someone else, however, did.

“ _Hermann!_ ”

+++++

Newt Geiszler was about as athletic as a potato chip.

That was a bit of an exaggeration. He’d played some baseball as a kid, could _almost_ skateboard even into his adult years, and gotten very, very good at running from bullies. But he’d been chubby as a kid and more squishy than swole as an adult. He didn’t mind. He liked his squish. But his lack of athleticism was kind of a problem during situations like, you know, the possible serious endangerment of one of the few friends he had in this world.

Hermann had sworn over the phone and abruptly hung up. Hermann _never did those things._ Newt, in response, panicked and booked it. Fortunately, his Pokemon Go excursion had taken him within walking distance of Hermann's current location. What Newt’s frantic brain forgot to take into account was that the building was within _walking_ distance. _Walking._ Not running. Especially not when the extent of his athletic prowess was _kind of_ being able to Ollie without breaking his own neck, and that one out of the park hit he managed in high school.

Somehow, _somehow_ , he was fueled by enough adrenaline that he made it to the building and found Hermann without slowing down. Sure, he sounded like an asthmatic pug and his legs were basically numb by the time he reached Hermann’s side, but on the plus side, Hermann didn’t look hurt. Just dazed. “ _Hermann!_ ” Newt skidded to a halt next to him. “Dude… _dude_ , are you hurt?! What happened?!”

Hermann looked at Newt in confusion. “…how did you get here?” he asked slowly, as though his brain were still catching up to everything going on. “Newton, did you run all the way over here?”

“Uh, _yeah!_ ” Newt had to take a second to catch his breath. _Note to self: these boots are really bad for running. Why did you do this to yourself._ “Yeah, you just…you just _hung up on me._ And…and you sounded freaked. What happened? Was anyone..anyone in there?”

“Erm…yes, yes, there was, but…”

“ _But?!_ Why the shit is there a but?!”

“They were, ah…glowing green and faintly skeletal.”

And _that_ was a sentence Newt never thought he’d hear come out of Hermann’s mouth. Like…ever.

“Whoever or whatever it was, they didn’t hurt me. But they seemed agitated by my presence, so I left,” Hermann finished. “I’m just a bit shaken, that’s all. Newton, what are you doing?”

What Newt was doing was marching down the hall. Okay, hobbling, but it was a very determined hobble. “Which classroom?”

“Newton, you can’t be serious.”

“I can be serious. Which classroom?” Hermann finally relented, following after Newt and indicating the classroom door. Newt pushed it open. “All right, pal, whatever the hell spooky shit you’re doing…”

The room was dark and empty.

“…never mind.” Newt glanced back at Hermann. “Are you sure it was this classroom?”

“I’m _positive._ ” Hermann’s face had gone from dazed to a mixture of embarrassed and concerned. “Maybe…maybe it was a prank, or maybe I was…seeing things?”

Newt turned the lights on just to be sure. The first thing he noticed was the chalkboard. It was covered in numbers and symbols. Newt didn’t recognize any of the equations, but the _way_ in which they were written was familiar to him. Increasingly erratic handwriting, parts aggressively scratched out or erased, some parts clearly erased and written back over--it looked like Hermann’s chalkboard when he couldn’t figure out an equation. The thought crossed his mind that maybe Hermann had done this, but two details disproved that hypothesis.

One: that wasn’t Hermann’s handwriting. Newt was very familiar with Hermann’s handwriting, and that was _not_ it.

Two: Hermann could pull off the occasional prank, but never anything that involved actually _scaring_ Newt. That wasn’t the kind of guy he was. The closest he’d come was that time he’d stuck a baby doll’s head on a remote controlled robot and programmed it to wander around the house on Halloween. Something like this was beyond him. He’d consider it too cruel.

Which meant either someone _else_ was playing a prank on them, or…

“Dude, you guard the door,” Newt said. “I’ve gotta…I’ve gotta see if I can find some equipment.”

“Why?”

“We’ve gotta science this shit, dude. I think you just saw a ghost.”


End file.
